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OUR COUNTRY: 



ITS PERIL AND ITS DELIVERANCE. 



ADVANCE SHEETS 



DANVILLE QUARTERLY REVIEW, FOR MARCH, 1861. 



REV. ROBERT J. BRECKINRIDGE, D.D., LL.D., 

PBOFEBSOR IN DANVILLE THEOLOGICAL BEUINABT. 



CINCINNATI: 

PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF THE DANVILLE REVIEW, 

jNo. 25 WEST FOURTH STREET, 

1861. 



£^J 










Abt. hi. — Our Country — Its Peril — Its Deliverance. 

I. The Spirit op Anarchy: Its Rise — Progress — Present State 

— Nature — Tendency. 

II. Grounds of Hope xVnd Effort : Statement of the Facts, 
Principles, and Considerations, on which the Preservation of the 
Union depends. 

III. Negro Slavery : As the Cause or Occasion of Sedition, Anar- 
chy, and Revolution — Considered in the light of our Civil and 
Political Institutions, — of the Law of Nature, — and of the 

Word of God. 

IV. Amicable Settlement : Statement of the Case — Relation of 
the North and the South to the Rendition of Fugitive Slaves, and 
to Slavery in the Territories, — Rights and Duties of both Parties, 

— Amicable Settlement as Simple and Equitable, as it is Wise 
and Patriotic. 

V. The Doctrine op Coercion : Its Abuse — Nature — Relation 
to the actual State of Affairs — The Power, Duty, and Responsi- 
bility of the General Government. 

1. 1. What we propose is, first, to make such a statement of 
the condition of affairs as may be of use to upright men, in en- 
abling them to determine what ought to be attempted, and what can 
be accomplished, in the way of preventing tlie ruin of their coun- 
try ; and, secondly, to make clear to all men, the position of a vast 
party in this country, who desire and who deserve, in all possible 
events, to be understood by posterity — and who, even if their 
principles are now overborne and their counsels are now rejected, 
may, if they are faithful to themselves, retrieve from the wreck of 
their country, whatever survives when the period of exhaustion 
shall come upon its destructive madness, 

2. There is no lesson which the universal course of human 
affairs teaches so thoroughly, as their own instability. And yet 
there is no lesson so hard for men to learn ; no lesson so preg- 
nant of results, and so little heeded. , How faithful ought men to 
be when overtaken by defeat and adversity — if they would con- 
sider that defeat and adversity, with courage and wisdom, are a 
preparation for triumph ? How just and forbearing ought men 
to be in the midst of power and prosperity, if they would consider 



2 OUR COUNTRY. [IMarch, 

that power and prosperity, in the degree that they are corrupt, 
make the road to destruction broad and sure ? And how immense, 
how unexpected, how effectual are the resources of God, in the 
accomplishment of what he ordains to be results of human 
conduct ? 

3. Look at the actual position of public affairs throughout this 
great nation — consider whither they are tending — consider 
whence that tendency has arisen — consider by what means it is 
propagating itself : and then reflect upon the unexpected and ex- 
traordinary means by which ruin is overtaking every interest and 
hope of the country — and upon the absolute completeness of the 
ruin, when these means shall have Avoided their full effect. In a 
state of security apparently perfect, and of prosperity apparently 
complete — a small and fierce party, scattered through some of 
the Northern States, commenced a systematic and persistent agi- 
tation connected with the Black Race on this continent ; and in 
the heart of their system lay this idea, that laws and institutions 
and rights and duties and interests of every description, ought to 
give way, if there was need of it, to the accomplishment of their 
designs. In the progress of time and events, and the ruin of 
political parties, this fundamental idea — which is the essence of 
lawlessness and anarchy — attaches itself in the public mind of 
some of the Northern States, to that particular aspect of the ques- 
tion of the Black Race which relates to the obligation, under the 
Federal Constitution, of delivering fugitive slaves ; and laws of 
various kinds are passed, throwing the weight of State authority 
against the obligation of the very highest national law. And so the 
idea and process of disintegration, as the tendency to lawlessness 
and anarchy strengthens, has thus risen from the condition of a 
fanaticism, to the dignity of a principle recognized by States 
and asserted in laws. As if to warn men of the breadth of the 
ruin involved in this tendency, and to mark the extremity of the 
peril arising from its connection with the question of the Black 
Race, one of the slave States had already, under a similar, but 
directly opposite tendency, formally asserted its right, not only 
to obstruct the execution of the laws of the United States, but 
to nullify them absolutely, and upon its own sole and sovereign 
discretion ; so that the spirit of lawlessness and anarcliy, in its 

Jhjf 

«J^ ^T S,i ' ' ' 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. S 

absolute and universal tendency to disintegrate all things — moved, 
though not first, yet more rapidly and by more decisive acts, at 
the South than at the North. 

4. Once more in the progress of time and events, and the ruin 
of political parties — the whole nation finds itself arrayed, in the 
last Presidential election, into two opposite parties, (of which the 
defeated one is mad enough to sub-divide itself into three ) ; and 
this same question of the Black Race, both in the aspect of the 
rendition of fugitive slaves, and in the aspect of slavery in the 
Territories — and these same questions of supreme law and of law- 
lessness as connected therewith — mounting to the highest national 
importance, and apparently swallowing up all other questions, are 
resolved, so far as that election could resolve them. But the solu- 
tion is every way remarkable. For while Mr. Lincoln is elected 
President — the majority of the nation is so decidedly against him, 
that he would have been beaten if the power of Congress to create 
uniform electoral districts had ever been exercised ; nay, would 
have been beaten under the existing system, if all opposed to him 
had been allowed by the corruption or folly of parties to unite on 
one opponent. Moreover the solution is further remarkable, in 
this, that both Houses of Congress, and, as is alleged, the Supreme 
Court of the United States, held his most dangerous opinions to 
be unconstitutional : and it is still further remarkable in this, that 
Mr. Lincoln himself, while representing the Northern section of 
the anarchical tendency of the times, is known to repudiate the 
original principle of that faction concerning the rendition of 
fugitive slaves, — and is by universal consent, even of his candid 
opponents, an able, honest, and patriotic man. At the end of 
thirty years of working of the spirit we have been tracing, a 
decisive event had thus put the country in a posture where it 
would clearly appear whether the hereditary law-abiding spirit of 
our race remained, the great prop and safeguard of all our insti- 
tutions ; or whether the spirit of anarchy, already so signally 
manifested at both extremities of the nation, had so far poisoned 
the national life of our race at its fountain, that the time had 
come for one of those great explosions of human passion which 
fill so many melancholy pages in the history of our race. 

5. It is not easy to conjecture, and it is impossible to say with 



4 OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

certainty, what would have occurred if the late presidential elec- 
tion had terminated differently from what it did, — in any one of 
the various ways in which a different termination was possible. 
This far we may now speak with certainty, that in some form or 
other, the spirit of turbulent fanaticism which had pervaded the 
States of the extreme North so long and so deeply, would not 
without a miracle, such as history does not record, have been al- 
layed or composed under any defeat that was possible, in the 
state of national parties as they are now known to have existed 
at that time. For there was this fatal element, long concealed — 
not generally believed — but openly avowed since the secession 
of South Carolina — that secession, as the final and deliberate 
choice of the extreme South, was the point to which political 
opinion had been long and carefully trained, and political parties 
long and singly directed. This fatal training, added to the widely 
diffused spirit of anarchy, smarting under a defeat equally signal 
and unnecessary,- and stimulated by considerations of the very 
highest importance connected with the question of the Black Race 
in every aspect of that question — produced the apparently sud- 
den revolution which has already, when these pages are written, 
led the six cotton States (South Carolina, Mississippi. Florida, 
Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana) to pass separate acts of seces- 
sion from the United States of America. Here then is the con- 
summation of this spirit of lawlessness and anarchy, working as 
we have already said it universally works, unto the disintegration 
— the morcelment of all things ; — the consummation of it, so far 
as to embrace all the States producing cotton, sugar, and rice, as 
their great staples. What is next to be determined is, the fate 
of the mixed slave States — those divided between farming and 
planting, ( North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas ) : and 
then the fate of the border slave States, (Delaware, Maryland, 
Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri ) : and then, we may confidently 
add, the fate of the nation. Whatever, in the meantime, it is of 
the last importance to bear in mind, shall be the conduct of the 
whole of the free States, and especially of the border free States 
(NcAV Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa), 
may be decisive alike of their own fate, and of that of all the 
rest, and of the nation itself for many generations. 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. 5 

6. Is it possible for any thoughtful person to suppose, that this 
spirit of reckless disregard of all existing institutions, has already 
accomplished all the results of which it is capable ? What shall 
prevent it from swallowing up all the remaining slave States ? 
What shall, after that is accomplished, prevent a counter-revolu- 
tion in every one of those slave States ? What shall prevent its 
taking some new direction with still more vehement force, through- 
out the whole North ? What shall prevent a counter-revolution 
in every Northern State ? And Avho can venture to hope, that a 
spirit which everywhere tramples under foot those institutions 
which everywhere have been esteemed most sacred, and every- 
where despises the most venerable and the most cherished tradi- 
tions of our country and our race ; will finally slack its thirst in 
any thing but human blood, or fail to assuage its insatiable rapa- 
city by universal plunder ? Cannot even the blind see, that 
when laws are violated in the name of morality and order, and 
constitutions are set at nought in the name of liberty and securi- 
ty, and revolutions are accomplished by terror and conducted 
under the guidance of irresistible fanaticism ; that there can be 
no result to such a career, as long as it has way, but the destruc- 
tion of everything that human governments are instituted to 
protect ; and that at every step of the career, the overthrow of 
every salutary power and the disintegration of every healthful 
force of society, more and more confirms the existence and the 
reign of universal anarchy ? It is as if God should destroy every 
principle of cohesion in the physical universe, and leave every 
separate force in it working to the destruction of all things. It 
is as if he should destroy every idea of subjection in the moral 
universe, and leave the passions of men to work out all the horrors 
of an infinite disorder. It is as the steady working of omnipo- 
tent force, unto the production of universal helplessness. It is, 
when it shall pervade the earth, the realization of the conjectures 
of those who expound the divine predictions concerning the con- 
dition in which The Son of Man will find all nations at his second 
coming — the universal reign of lawlessness after the universal dis- 
integration of every element capable of restraining it. What we 
say is — not that these results are inevitable : God forbid ! But we 
do say they are natural — they are imminent — they are far more 



& OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

to be apprehended, than what has already occurred, both in the 
North and in the South, was to be apprehended thirty years ago. 
And we may say these things with a greater confidence of an in- 
sight of the terrible future, and a more eager beseeching of our 
generation to beware ; since during more than thirty years we 
have not ceased to lift up an unheeded testimony, both against 
the principles and the proceedings, both at the North and at the 
South — whose frightful results the country is now beginning to 
realize. 

II. 1. Let us now seek, amidst this chaos, for some ground of 
hope and effort. Throughout the eighteen free States, society is 
supposed to be under the control of the Republican party. As 
indicated by the presidential election in November last, it may be 
conceded that the majority in all those States, did at that time, 
believe the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, to be the 
best of the alternatives then offered to their choice ; and it may- 
be further conceded, though it is not strictly accurate, that, at 
present, the local political and military power, in all those States, 
is in the hands of the Republican party. But it is also true that 
a minority in those States, numerically almost as large as the 
entire voting population of the fifteen slave States, voted against 
Mr. Lincoln — and are thoroughly opposed to the distinctive 
principles of the Republican part3\ It is also undeniable that a 
very large number of those who voted for Mr. Lincoln, are far 
more Whigs or Americans than they are Republicans : — and it 
is equally certain that a very large number of the Republican 
party itself, strictly speaking, are patriotic men, who, while they 
preferred the success of their party to the success of any other 
party, prefer the peace, the prosperity, and the security of their 
country above anything that could be obtained by the triumph of 
their party. If any political result in the future, therefore, can 
be considered certain, it is certain, that a revolution in opinion, 
more or less decided, will manifest itself throughout the free 
States, whenever the issue is clearly put to them between their 
country and any political party. And it is equally certain, that 
whatever party shall hurry those States, by whatever means, into 
the horrors of civil war, and the anguish of that impending anar- 
chy of which we have spoken ; will perish by a counter-re volu- 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. 7 

tion, just as apt to be bloody there as in any other portion of the 
nation. 

2. In the position of all the slave States there are peculiar cir- 
cumstances much overlooked, both amongst themselves and others ; 
but nevertheless decisive in the long run. No force, however 
small, but will accomplish its end, if sufficient time be allowed : 
even that which is infinitely minute, if it operates through an 
infinite period. The six cotton States appear to us to have taken 
their course in such a temper, with such purposes, upon such 
principles, and under such foregone conclusions, that they neither 
desire to return to their former position, nor would at present 
agree to anything that they believe would accomplish that result. 
It is, of course, possible that we are mistaken in this painful con- 
clusion, and we should heartily rejoice to know that we are : but, 
seeing no ground on which we can doubt that the case stands thus, 
neither do we see any on which we can avoid stating our belief. 
It would be gross injustice to many thousands of patriotic men in 
all the cotton States, to suppose that either of those States would 
have been allowed to take the course it has pursued, without a 
desperate political struggle in its own bosom ; if the circumstances 
of these men, in each of those States, had appeared to them to 
allow of resistance to the organized force which swept society 
away. There are also thousands of persons in all those States, 
who even now consider it a slander and a reproach, that ulterior 
designs are ascribed to those who direct this secession movement, 
which it seems apparent to all mankind, except themselves, are 
not only certain to be realized if the movement is permanently 
sustained, but which were amongst the earliest and most powerful 
causes of the long cherished desire to be relieved from the real 
restraints of the Federal Government, and the imaginary perils 
and injuries of the Federal Union. In the actual condition of the 
States which have already seceded, as we understand that condi- 
tion and the manner in which it has been brought about, we 
deem it perfectly obvious that a counter-revolution must manifest 
itself in every one of them — equally as decided, and perhaps 
more violent, than the revolution which has already occurred. 
That counter-revolution may be in a direction more and more 
fatal — bringing into uncontrolled power, parties Avholly unfit and 



8 OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

unworthy to possess it. It may be in a direction eminently favor- 
able to the security and prosperity of those cotton States, and 
terminatino; in their restoration to the Union, under the lead of a 
party whose elements now lie scattered, or even as yet totally un- 
developed. But the present revolution, in its very nature, its 
causes, and its designs — must go deeper, in one direction or the 
other. In ivliich direction, depends in our opinion, in the first 
instance, in a great degree, upon these contingencies : 1. The 
conduct of the present ruling faction in those States ; its forbear- 
ance on the one hand, or its violence on the other : 2. The con- 
duct of the Federal Government towards those States ; as it may 
be firm and yet temperate, or as it may be vacillating and timid: 
3. The conduct of the slave States continuing in the Union ; as 
they may share the madness of the six seceding States, or as they 
may arrest the pestilence at the cotton line, and by their wisdom 
and courage restore the Union : 4. The conduct of the free States, 
and especially those along the slave border ; as they shall obsti- 
nately persist in fomenting opinions and performing acts touch- 
ing the whole question of the Black Race, which they can now 
clearly see must involve the country in one common ruin, or as 
they, by a common consent, or by a counter-revolution in their own 
bosom, restore public opinion to a condition under which slave 
States may safely live in peace with them. Under such circum- 
stances it is easy to see, how great and difiicult is the task laid 
on true statesmen, everywhere, and how immense and how dubious 
are the issues submitted to them. 

3. The remaining nine slave States, of which five are border 
States, and four are mixed slave State-s, have in each of these 
classes peculiarities as marked as those which distinguish the 
cotton vStates ; j'et as the whole nine occupy a similar position at 
the present moment, Avith regard to the revolution which has swept 
over the cotton States ; they may, for the sake of brevity, be 
thrown together in developing the great ideas Ave are endeavoring 
to disclose. What the exact issue Avill be in these nine States — 
or whether it will be similar in them all — or in a\ hich direction 
the prevailing opinion Avill settle, if different courses are taken — 
are questions Avhich it is impossible to determine at this time. 
But it is very obvious, that if the whole nine — or even the greater 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. 9^ 

part of them, embracing the leading and powerful States, refuse 
to unite in the movement taken by the six cotton States, that 
movement must necessarily prove a failure, both as to its avowed, 
and as to any concealed object ; a counter-revolution in the cotton 
States becomes presently inevitable; and those cotton States 
must ultimately accommodate themselves to the policy, whatever 
it may be, adopted by the other and leading States, instead of 
being able to force those far more powerful than themselves, to 
follow blindly and servilely a course disapproved by them, and 
which rests for its ultimate reason, upon nothing better than the 
sudden caprice of South Carolina, or her chronic hatred of the 
National Union, There are immense considerations, altogether 
independent of the real merits of the great cause which is under 
trial — why the course dictated by South Carolina, and adopted by 
the other cotton States, should be steadfastly rejected. Amongst 
these are such as follow : 1. This method by secession annihi- 
lates the very idea of all force in permanent constitutional union, 
or common government over sovereign States, and establishes as 
inherent in all possible future unions, the idea of anarchy, and 
deprives liberty forever of the possibility of being either stable 
or strong : 2. The method of secession, by separate State action, 
is founded on illusions utterly fatal and absurd, that the American 
people are not a nation — the Federal Constitution not a govern- 
ment — the American people not bound to be loyal except to local 
authorities, which being assumed, condemns this continent to be 
the everlasting habitation of every thing feeble, factious, and ex- 
travagant : 3. The adoption of ordinances of secession, by con- 
ventions called by ordinary Legislatures — without allowing the 
people to determine by a previous sovereign act whether or not 
the convention shall exist, and by a subsequent sovereign act 
whether or not its proceedings shall have force — destroys the 
very idea of the sovereignty of the people, makes constitutional 
liberty and security impossible, and invites factions, in proportion 
as they are corrupt or incompetent, to usurp and to abuse sove- 
reign power : 4. The utter refusal to consult with States, all of 
which were united by the highest human obligations — and many 
of which were involved in perils the very same in kind and higher 
in degree — is a line of conduct reckless in itself, insulting to all 



10 OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

others, apparently adopted with the purpose of rendering all 
peaceful, considerate, or even decorous arrangements impossible, 
and necessarily jeopards, in the result reached, the profitable 
continuance of slavery, if not its very existence, in the greater 
part of the slave States, and amongst them the most powerful, 
the most loyal, and the most enlightened of them all. At the 
present moment two most important truths are perfectly distinct. 
The first is, that the action hitherto taken in the States whose 
position we are now considering, — no matter what that action 
may lead to — involves a fundamental dissent from the conduct 
pursued by the six seceding States — and contemplates redress 
in a different way, and upon opposite principles. The second is, 
that a very great portion of each of these nine States, probably 
the majority of the people in most of them — possibly in all of 
them, — are warmly attached to the Union, — are resolutely de- 
termined to maintain their loyalty to the nation as their nation, 
at the same time that they maintain their loyalty to the particular 
States of which they are citizens, and are far more inclined to 
compose existing difiiculties, than to drive matters to extremity 
in any direction. 

4. These facts and considerations, taken in detail and taken 
all together, are worthy of the very highest consideration ; — and 
whatever the issue of events may be, they reveal to the people 
and to those they trust, the grounds on which, and the manner in 
which, the country may be saved : and they disclose to posterity 
the pregnant and enduring truth, that at the utmost peril of the 
country the people would have saved it, if they had been bravely 
and wisely led. For under fair and true statesmanship, the 
chances are more than equal, in the first place, to rally the im- 
mense masses of the nine slave States whose people are now pon- 
dering their course, to such an action as will make their position 
secure in the Union, and satisfy them : in the second place, to 
secure such a treatment of the subject of secession by the Federal 
Administration, as will at once give efficacy to the laws, and avoid 
armed collision, except in repelling force by force : in the third 
place, to seek and to rely upon, such a reaction among the massca 
of the people in the free States, as will, by a common consent, or 
if it becomes necessary, by hurling from power those who stand 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. tt 

in the way, make manifest the determination of those masses to 
put an end to the reign of that atheistical and relentless fanati- 
cism, which is the original cause of the ruin that stares us all in 
the face : and in the fourth place, to expect and await with con- 
fidence, the inevitable counter-revolution in the States which have 
already seceded, which will disabuse the minds of men of the de- 
lusion that the revolution there has been, as to the popular masses, 
either spontaneous or cordial, and restore those States to their 
true position in the confederacy. It is in this manner that re- 
sults, equally indispensable and glorious, are attainable, — results 
capable also, no doubt, of being defeated ; and that in ways far 
too various to be traced here. But when defeated, let us never 
forget that they who defeat them will share in full measure with 
us, all present evils, and will bear alone the execrations of poster- 
ity. And when defeated, what will remain for this generation, 
will be to realize the calamities of that frightful condition we have 
traced in the commencement of this paper ; — or, as we have at- 
tempted to show on a former occasion, to construct even upon the 
line between the free and the slave States, a new and central 
power — competent at once to preserve all our institutions, to 
develope our national progress, and to direct the destinies of this 
continent. 

5. Besides the special considerations which we have developed, 
as particularly relevant to the condition of our country, and the 
manner in which her destiny may be retrieved : there are many 
other considerations of a more general kind, and of the highest 
force, all pointing in the same direction, which it behooves 
every man to ponder deeply, before he despairs of his country, 
and before he lays his hands rudely on our existing institutions, 
in the vain hope of something better. Of these, there are two 
so preeminent, that we ought to direct special attention to them. 
The first relates to that view of the subject which discloses the 
indestructible power of life in such a nation as this, and the 
length and depth and breadth of the agony which it can endure, 
and yet live. They who know the past of human affairs, and 
they who reflect on that eternal logic which is of the essence of 
things and events, know that a nation like this cannot die. It is 
hardly possible to conceive how it can even be murdered; but die 



If OUR COUNTRY. [IMarcli, 

it cannot. It would be as easy to conceive that France could be 
blotted from the map of Europe as one of its greatest nations, 
and restored to the condition it occupied before its conquest by 
Caesar ; as to conceive of the American nation being annihilated, 
its sublime career cut short, its boundless possessions parcelled 
out, and an ignominious retinue of numberless aristocracies, dem- 
ocracies, dukedoms, and principalities, permanently filling its seat 
of empire and of glory. After eighteen centuries of anguish, 
Italy, hailed by the acclamations of mankind, is purging herself 
in a baptism of blood from the very condition which men are pre- 
paring for us ; and the consuming instinct of her restored life is 
for that very national unity which we are expected to sacrifice, 
and in default of which she has suffered every form of evil, in 
every stage of civilization, under every kind of government. 
What have they to offer us, in exchange for our national unity, 
but sorrow without an object — and degradation without a limit 
— accompanied with struggles and suffering for its recovery, 
renewed, and suppressed in blood, and renewed for evermore — 
until in some distant age, perhaps, it shall be restored amidst the 
rejoicings of all peoples ! This blind and fierce spirit of anarchy 
which has fastened upon the extremities of the nation, and is 
threatening to eat into its heart, has no aspect more startling, 
than its frightful antagonism to the absolute tendency and the 
total civilization of the age, in which it has made itself manifest. 
The second of the two great considerations alluded to, relates to 
the dominion and purpose of God over and concerning our coun- 
try. The revolting disregard which this whole movement towards 
destruction exhibits towards God's dealings with our country, the 
shocking conceptions it proclaims of our mission as a people, 
compared with the conception of that mission as indicated by God 
himself, present almost the saddest aspect of the case. Nor is it 
the least remarkable feature of the lawless spirit which underlies 
the entire revolution, that while in both extremities of the nation 
it fastens upon the same idea — the slavery of the African race 
— as the controlling idea of God in all his purposes concerning 
us ; it should give that idea its utmost destructiveness to us, and 
its utmost offensiveness to God, by making it work in directions 
precisely opposite. Is it conceivable that God should teach his 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. I'S 

children at the North, that his highest purpose concerning the 
American people is, that they should extinguish African slavery ; 
and at the same moment teach his children at the South, that his 
highest purpose concerning the American people is, that they 
should perpetuate African slavery ? Rather is it not utterly in- 
conceivable, that he should have taught any of them that his pur- 
poses concerning African slavery, or the African race, in any way 
whatever contain his chief purposes concerning the white race on 
this continent ? A more melancholy instance can scarcely be 
produced in all history, of the destructive extent to which re- 
ligious opinion can be made to take the prevailing hue of a fierce 
enthusiasm, or an intolerant fanaticism, which reigns around it. 
It is not in this manner, on the one side or the other, that the 
tens of thousands of God's children, scattered over this great 
empire like salt which has not lost its savour, interpret the teach- 
ings of his word, the indications of his providence, or the tokens 
of his infinite mercy towards us. It is not in any such sense of 
the mission of our country, or our race, that the people every- 
whei'e, have so lately come before God, in a great service of 
national humiliation, confessing their sins, and praying for his 
gracious interposition in this time of sore need. "Wlio is authorized 
to say, that God has not heard the cry of his people ? Who will 
dare to say, that God is not able to save ? In the utmost extrem- 
ity of Israel, God said to them by Moses, Fear ye not, stand still, 
and see the salvation of God, which he will shew to you to-day. 

Ill, 1. At present, and during a long course of preceding 
years, it has been the very general impression that Negro slavery 
was the direct, if not the single difficulty, in all the commotions 
of which we have been speaking. As far as these commotions 
have had a moral and religious element, and have manifested 
themselves in the bosom of the different Christian denominations, 
this wide-spread impression has probably been true. But in other 
respects the connection of Negro slavery with these commotions, 
throughout, has been indirect ; and its moral and religious aspect 
has had little significance, except as the abolition movement has 
heen free-thi7iJcing in religion, and as political and sectional parties 
have coerced religious opinion in particular directions, for party 
and sectional purposes. The nullification movement many years 



fjH: OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

ago, in South Carolina, related to slavery only in the most indi- 
rect way — and in no connection with any moral or religious 
question. It was a question of revenue, taxation, commerce, 
tariffs, wealth : a false theory of political economy enraged by the 
peculiar condition of labor. More recently, the commotion about 
slavery in the Territories, has been a struggle for political power, 
aggravated on the side of the North by the urgency of its nu- 
merous emigrant population for cheap homes in fertile regions. 
And at the present moment, the States which have seceded, are 
of all the slave States the very ones which would not have 
seceded, and the slave States which are most anxious to preserve 
the Union are the very ones which would have promptly seceded, 
if the current impression of the case was true and complete. If 
at any time within the last thirty years, a revolution in produc- 
tion, in trade, in commerce, in any thing, had wrought a thorough 
change in the general opinion of the South, touching — not the 
essential nature — but the incidental advantages of slavery in a 
political and a financial point of view ; of course, no one would 
ever have heard of secession in the South — or even seen the 
remotest approach to the existing state of opinion at the North. 
It is the idea of power — power to be diminished by remaining 
in the Union and to be incalculably augmented by leaving it; 
the idea of wealth, of conquest, of advancement — all of them, 
we are thoroughly convinced, in the highest degree illusive and 
fatal ; but it is these ideas — far more than any disgust that the 
North condemns slavery as immoral, or any apprehension that 
slavery will be disturbed, or slaves stolen, or the South annoyed 
in the Union — that pervades the present dominant party in the 
cotton States, and enabled it to precipitate them into revolution. 
How far this aspect of the case aggravates or alleviates the diffi- 
culty of dealing with it, in any hope of such an issue as we con- 
sider fortunate, must depend on many considerations which can 
not be discussed here. In any event, it seems clear that they 
who would heal a malady must understand its exact nature. And 
if it is never healed, they who eagerly desire that it should be, 
owe to themselves and to posterity a fair and complete statement 
of the case, and of the remedy they propose for it. 

2. Human servitude, considered in its widest sense, and of 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. 15 

which hereditary slavery as it exists in our slave States is the 
extreme form — may be discussed in the light of Divine Revela- 
tion — or in the light of the Law of Nature — or in the light of 
the political and municipal institutions of the countries where it 
exists. Considered in this last aspect — there ought to be no 
dispute concerning it, and there can be none fairly, in this coun- 
try, except in a single point of view — namely, its existence in 
the national territory, which we will speak of separately. For, 
undeniably, each State has the complete and exclusive right, to 
determine concerning it as a strictly domestic institution ; and, 
undeniably, neither any other State, nor the government which is 
common to all the States, has any power to interfere with it, or 
concerning it, in any State. And this is not only matter of con- 
stitutional obligation on one side, and uncontrolled right on the 
other ; but the plainest dictates of prudence, and the clearest obli- 
gations of morality, impose upon the States, and the general 
government, the duty of a simple, sincere, and faithful observance 
of all that is implied, as well as all that is expressed, in these re- 
strictions. Massachusetts has no right, of any kind, to assail 
slavery in South Carolina, — nor has South Carolina any right of 
any sort to encourage the introduction of slavery into Massachu- 
setts : and any attempt on the part of the General Government, 
directly or indirectly, to favour any such endeavour on the part 
of either of them, is a foolish and wicked perversion of its own 
nature. Nor is there any plea that can be offered, either by the 
General Government, or by any State, for departing from this 
clear line of mutual duty, which is not immoral in itself, and 
revolutionary in its tendency. Moreover the prompt and cordial 
performance by all parties, towards each other, of all the mutual 
duties binding upon them under the Federal Constitution touching 
every subject, and amongst the rest the subject of slavery, and 
amongst the duties connected with slavery the rendition of fugi- 
tive slaves, of which we will speak separately ; besides being 
every way binding before God and man, is the sure, the wise, and 
the peaceful way to promote all the interests of all the parties, 
and to secure the lasting glory and prosperity of the country. 

3. When we undertake to determine this, or indeed any ques- 
tion, under what we call the Law of Nature, we encounter the 



jtig OUR COUNTRY. [IVIarch, 

most serjous difficulties at every step. What we shall say, there- 
fore, on this topic, must be in subordination to what has just been 
said under the aspect of our civil and political obligations, and 
what we shall say presently under the aspect of revealed truth and 
duty. Besides the statement of the Law of Nature, recorded and 
reiterated in the Word of God, of which we do not speak at 
present, there are other — perhaps numerous, but certainly indis- 
tinct, and perhaps contradictory utterances of that great and per- 
manent law. At the head of these utterances we may place that 
which the human reason discloses : next to that, perhaps, the 
common impulses of the human soul : then, perhaps, the current 
opinions and beliefs of the human race : and then, which in some 
respects ought to be held most valid of all — the common and 
apparently inevitable, if not voluntary state of our race in all 
ages — as the best concrete expression of its reason, its impulses, 
and its current belief — and therefore of the Law of its Nature 
in its present state. If we will reflect carefully on each of these 
utterances of the Law of Nature touching this vast topic of human 
servitude, we will perceive how narrow is the foothold they afl"ord 
to support us in disloyalty towards the civil and political institu- 
tions of our country, much less to sustain us in rejecting the re- 
vealed will of God. (1.) The human reason teaches with clear- 
ness, that if there can be such a thing, or such an idea, as property, 
the highest form of it — nay, the very basis of it — is the right 
which every one has to himself: and just as clearly, that the 
claim of property by the Law of Nature, on the part of one per- 
son in another person, is founded in the rejection of the very 
foundation of the idea of property, since my right to have another 
rests on my previous right to myself. On the otlier hand, human 
reason teaches us that property in ourself is as capable of being 
forfeited, limited, or alienated, as any other property. For ex- 
ample, the right of existence is higher than our property in our- 
self; and it is as absurd to say that I may not part absolutely with 
the latter, in order to secure the former, as it is to say I may not 
limit my property in myself, in order to make my existence more 
endurable, or even more comfortable. And the very nature of 
human society is such, that the liberty, as well as the life and 
property of every one, passes by the fact of the existence of 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. 1^ 

society, from its absolute personal form, into a modified form de- 
terminable only by the aggregate will — which will ought to be 
determined by the will of God. But as the human race is in 
rebellion against God — human reason lands the problem very 
nearly in a paradox. (2.) If we appeal next for guidance to tho 
common impulses of the human soul, in order to have this great 
question of human servitude interpreted, we obtain a response 
equally vague, but far more vehement than before. Surely it is, 
and it has always been, the desire of every human being to be 
free from restraint — the passionate desire of our race to possess 
what each member of it, in his particular condition, meant by 
liberty. And the aggregate impulse of the race in that direction, 
is more powerful and is better regulated to-day than it ever was 
before, — and the hope of true, and stable, and universal freedom, 
as the final inheritance of all mankind, may be more rationally 
cherished, than at any former period. But the wisest men and the 
freest people know the best — that this personal desire of freedom 
from restraint is no evidence whatever that restraint is wrong; 
and that this universal impulse towards what they mean by liberty, 
totally fails — of itself — in proving that they who cherish it 
would do aught but mischief, if God were to gratify all their de- 
sires. It is one of the most sorrowful aspects of human nature 

— this consuming impulse towards liberty and equality — this 
lasting desire of the good and the wise that it might be gratified 

— this total impossibility of its gratification, except under special 
conditions of advancement, reached as yet by comparatively small 
portions of our race. (3.) And now if we turn to the common 
opinion ayid belief of the human race, as the true expositor of that 
law of their nature under the light of which the institutions of the 
most civilized states are to be abolished and the inspired teach- 
ings of God are to be silenced ; we may take one firm step, and 
then all is chaos, which thickens as we advance. Assuredly there 
is a sense of good and of true — and therefore of right and just 

— universal in our race ; and a sense, moreover, that these things 
apply to, and ought to regulate, all the conditions and relations 
of man — servitude in all its forms amongst the rest. If there 
was ever an opinion and belief common to our race, that servitude 
in its widest sense was contrary to the nature of man ; then the 



i^ OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

race had before it always, in the actual condition of the larger 
part of it, the clearest proof that the belief was absurd. If there 
had ever been such a common belief strong enough to form the 
basis of practical life ; then half the race would have immediately 
perished from want — or universal rapine would have become its 
habitual condition. The belief has, no doubt, been common to 
our race in all time, that every one ought to enjoy all the gifts 
of God, and amongst the rest the inestimable one of personal 
freedom, so far as was compatible with the circumstances in 
which God's providence had placed each person — that is, so far 
as was compatible with the will of the Giver of all good, thus 
made known to every person. And this belief is true and just. 
But what is established by it is, that according to the Law of 
Nature as explained by the spontaneous belief of mankind, servi- 
tude in every form may, though of itself indifferent, become 
right or wrong, good or bad, according to the circumstances of 
each particular case. And beyond this unquestionable truth — 
he who will enquire will get no intelhgible response. (4.) The 
last of the four utterances of the Law of Nature which we have 
specified, is the actual execution of the law, as that is exhibited to 
us in the common state of the human race, in all ages, and in 
every stage of civilization. Here there is no possibility of mis- 
take. The testimony is as unanimous, as it is frightful and uni- 
versal. The different races, the different nations, the different 
tribes, the different families, the different individuals — all, every 
where, have felt themselves to be naturally impelled to reduce 
each other into a condition of subjection — and have felt them- 
selves to be naturally permitted, upon a change of fortune, to 
submit to a state of subjection. Nor is it possible to doubt that 
the natural and univ n'sal con luct of mankind, as clearly proves that 
men are as thorougldy convinced they ought to be masters, as 
their conduct could possibly prove they were convinced that they 
ought not to be slaves. Those conditions of mankind which arc 
alledged to resemble most nearly the condition claimed to be nat- 
ural to man, are the very conditions in which servitude, in some 
form or other, is the most spontaneous and complete; and it is in 
conditions of advanced civilization that the extreme forms of ser- 
vitude gradually expire — unless some peculiar element in the 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. 19 

state of society opposes an insuperable barrier to its extinction. 
It takes nothing from this boundless testimony, to assert that the 
dreary conclusion it establishes is contrary to the reason, the im- 
pulses, and the beliefs of mankind : for if the assertion were true, 
it only shows that mankind cannot be, what mankind asserts, de- 
sires, and believes it should be. And the more desolate the con- 
viction thus begotten may be, the more are we compelled to look 
— for the mitigation of human servitude — not to revolution 
based on our notions of the Law of Nature, but the wise and 
temperate amelioration of existing institutions, under the in- 
fluence of the love of God. And the more all other rules of 
judgment and conduct fail us, the more ought we to feel obliged 
to submit ourselves to the guidance of God, in matters which con- 
cern us so nearly as these now do. What remains, therefore, is 
to consider the question of human servitude in the light of divine 
revelation. 

4. It is in the Word of God that this great problem is com- 
pletely solved. Human servitude, in all its forms, is one of the 
badges of the fallen condition of the human race ; and every in- 
cident of it, that aggravates any particular form of it, or that 
augments the severity of all the forms of it from the very lightest 
to the very heaviest, is a separate proof that our natural condi- 
tion is one of sin and misery. And whatever revolt there may 
be in human nature against any form of servitude, is a kind of 
testimony to the original freedom in Avhich man was created in 
the image of God, and to the remaining susceptibility of his de- 
praved nature to be restored ; while the utter inability of the race 
to escape this part of its deplorable condition, shows how deeply 
the grounds and reasons of that condition are laid in its nature. 
A fallen race, lying under the wrath of God and the condemna- 
tion of his holy law — but having his promise of deliverance even 
in this life and of immortal blessedness in a better life to come — 
is making its way, in this condition of probation, through the ages 
and across the earth. The accumulated experience of the entire 
existence of the race, and the uniform course of divine provi- 
dence, and the explicit declarations of God's Word, show us in 
the clearest manner, that the career of such a race, in such a 
state, and yet under such a probation, must necessarily exhibit 



20 ouK COUNTRY. [March, 

much that is, so to speak, unavoidably incident to such a case, in 
some respects alleviating, and in some respects aggravating its or- 
dinary, average condition. War is inevitable ; sometimes in its re- 
sult glorious and blessed, sometimes frightful in all its issues ; but 
war, so far from being of itself, and to all who engage in it either 
just or sinful, is often atrocious, and often amongst the liighest du- 
ties of mankind. Sickness is the product of God's just sentence of 
death upon our sinful race, and is of itself a temporal evil cover- 
ing the whole earth ; yet it is often made an unspeakable blessing, 
and no one ventures to say is of itself sinful. Sorrow and afflic- 
tion are brought on us in innumerable forms, and from every quar- 
ter, and often by means of our truest, and noblest, and wisest im- 
pulses ; — in every instance they are incidents of sin, direct or 
remote, but perhaps not in one instance of a million of the sin of 
him who suffers. Poverty, and its consequent, suffering, is of it- 
self one of the direst and most universal calamities of mankind ; 
and yet it is the parent of many of our highest virtues and at- 
tainments — and so far from being sinful of itself, is the subject 
of many of the most tender and urgent provisions both of the law 
of God and the Gospel of Christ. It is to this great class of inci- 
dents of the actual condition of our race, that human servitude in 
all its forms belongs. Existing, like all we have named, and mul- 
titudes besides, because our condition is just what it is — a con- 
dition of sin and misery in a state of probation ; wrought out 
inevitably, in some form or other, in the bosom of such a condi- 
tion; modified indefinitely, by every circumstance that affects 
any considerable portion of the race; but utterly incapable of 
being permanently and universally abolished, while our race con- 
tinues in a state of sin and misery, attended with probation. It 
seems to us as absurd to call the relation of master and servant 
(in any form of servitude) sinful of itself, or to expect the relation 
to cease upon earth ; as it is to call the relation between a sick 
man and a well one, an afflicted man and a happy man, a rich 
man and a poor one, sinful of itself, or expect either of them to 
come to an end. And this, it seems to us, is the simple, the ra- 
tional, and the scriptural account of human servitude in all its 
possible aspects, and in its essential nature in the sight of God. 
5. If we acknowledge the sacred Scriptures to be the divine 



1861.] OTJR COUNTRY. SB. 

rule of our faith and our practice, there ought to be an end to all 
extreme opinions, and all violent proceedings, on this entire sub- 
ject. From the days of Abraham, to the death of the last in- 
spired Apostle, there is one uniform doctrine, one uniform prac- 
tice, one unchanging aspect of the whole matter — presented by 
God for the guidance of mankind. Throughout the total revela- 
tion which God has made to man — throughout the immense period 
embracing the dispensations of Abraham, of Moses, and of Christ, 
— human servitude, Abrahamic, Jewish, Christian, and heathen — 
and the heathen aspect of it, such as was presented in every nation 
of antiquity, Asiatic, African and European, down to and after the 
period of universal dominion by the Romans ; we have this im- 
mense subject exhibited to us, in all its possible bearings, by God 
himself. Never, in a single instance, is it represented to us as a 
thing good in itself: never, in a single instance, as a thing sinful 
in itself: always as a thing actually existing, always to be ex- 
pected, allowed by God, considered and treated in his law, regu- 
lated by his providence, wholly indifferent as concerning his grace, 
and to enter into our final account to him, both as we may be mas- 
ters and as we may be servants, in the light of our faithful dis- 
charge or our Avicked neglect of our duties to each other in that 
relation. As masters, the measure of our authority is the mea- 
sure of our guilt, if we neglect the duties binding on us, or abuse 
the power we possess : so that the slavery which exists amongst 
us, carries this responsibility to a height which, to all thoughtful 
Christian persons, gives the institution one of its heaviest burdens. 
To consider the relation, on the side of the master, one merely 
of profit to himself, is to forfeit at once every justification for its 
continuance ; while, on the other hand, to rob the relation Avholly 
of that aspect, can be founded only on the notion that all servitude 
is sinful, or else on some fanatical idea of justice or charity, 
which if rendered practical would put an end to society, by put- 
ting an end to all motive for any one to obtain any sort of service 
from another. That every form of servitude ought to be ameli- 
orated continually, even if we are sure it can never be abolished, 
is as clear as that poverty should be alleviated though we knoAv it 
can never be prevented, or that sickness should be relieved, 
though it is certain it will recur forever. Clear as may be the 



22 OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

justification of every form of servitude so far as the mere question 
of sin is concerned — and perfect as may be the right to persist 
in the extreme form of it, so far as the civil power is concerned — 
there are a thousand considerations, personal and public, moral 
and political, which may so bear upon individuals and communi- 
ties, as to make it their clear duty, under given circumstances, to 
put an end to the hereditary slavery which exists amongst us, or 
under given circumstances to make it improper to attempt it, or 
impossible to accomplish it. It is absurd, therefore, if not mon- 
strous, to contend that vast regions of our country are morally 
bound to the last extremity and as their chief duty, to labour for the 
more secure establishment and the more effectual perpetuation of 
negro slavery ; and equally so to array public opinion, and to di- 
rect political parties, in other vast portions of the country, to the 
repression or the destruction of it, on any pretext at all, much 
less any connected with its moral nature. We have already shown 
that a faithful observance of our constitutional obligations would 
put an end to all such opinions and practices ; and that there is 
no justification for any of the principles on which they rest, or 
the proceedings to which they lead, to be found in natural law. 
And now it seems clear, that the only infallible rule of conduct, 
God's blessed Word, condemns in the most positive manner, all 
the pretexts concerning negro slavery, whether at the North or 
the South, upon which the public mind has been lashed into mad- 
ness. Slavery is an institution, which revolutions neither per- 
petuate nor abolish, except under conditions wholly accidental. 
And if the anarchical spirit, whose seditious career we have 
traced, finally triumphs and this nation is destroyed — the real 
problem to be afterwards worked out will be, the ultimate do- 
minion of the White race, or of a mixed race essentially African, 
over the cotton region of this continent. Is the inaugurating of 
that problem, worth the ruin of this great nation V 

IV. 1. In attempting to develop the topic which remains, we 
are fully aware of the diflBculties of the task. Both at the North 
and at the South, there are great parties thoroughly organized 
and acting in precisely opposite directions as to opinion, but one 
direction as effective as the other toward the common object of 
their labors — namely, the tearing of the nation to pieces. They 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. 23 

who agree in nothing else, agree in the common desire for that 
result, which involves our national ruin. In the meantime, the 
immense popular masses at the North which have only partially 
cooperated with the organized parts bent on destruction, or have 
fallen into minorities openly resisting that party — are neither or- 
ganized in part, nor of one accord amongst themselves, except 
upon the single point, that they are suddenly awakened to the ex- 
treme peril of the situation, and are rapidly settling into a reso- 
lute purpose to avert the danger, if it is still possible. In the 
whole South, the condition of affairs is similar, but more perilous. 
The disruption of the Democratic party at Charleston and at Bal- 
timore, is susceptible of but three possible interpretations : it was 
an act of mere passion — or it was an act of deep intention, de- 
signed to produce exactly what has followed — or it was an act 
looking to the reconstruction of that party and to new endeavors 
for its permanent triumph as a national party. Recent events 
tend to show, that the disruption was made in the fixed sense of 
the second of these three possible interpretations ; or at any rate, 
in the contemplation, and perfect preparation of many leading men 
to take that alternative, even if they are not chargeable with having 
intentionally procured it. What occurred was, that the cotton 
growing South suddenly awoke to a consciousness, that a great and 
perfectly organized party in her bosom, was .precipitating state 
after state into secession ; while in every seceding state — even in 
South Carolina — masses of the people, stunned by the suddenness 
and vehemence and thorough organization of the movement, were 
borne along by it, or made resistance only on collateral points, 
or remained in dissatisfied silence as the storm swept over them. 
And in all the remaining slave states, state after state became 
suddenl}'^ the theatre of a concerted agitation propagated origin- 
ally from South Carolina, and tending everywhere to the same 
violent result, by the same seditious proceedings, in the venerable 
names of state sovereignty and constitutional power. In these 
latter states, the resistance on the part of the community to this 
revolutionary fanaticism, was more in accordance with what be- 
came a free people ; and whatever the issue may be, the most of 
them, possibly every one of them, will reach it with a decorum, 
a gravity, and a public decency inseparable even in death itself 



24 OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

from all true greatness, on all great occasions. But these great 
popular masses throughout the fifteen slave states — embracing all 
men Avho were not ready to rush into immediate secession, and 
embracing, therefore, the immense majority of the people in that 
half of the nation — were taken by surprise — cut up into three 
mutually hostile political parties — disorganized by an infinite di- 
versity of opinion — and destitute for the moment of great leaders 
to whom they could turn with a common consent. Rapidly, and 
by a movement almost spontaneous, public opinion, overborne for 
the moment in the six seceding states, and trembling in the bal- 
ance in several other states, appears to us to be consolidating in 
the greater number and the most powerful of those states, in a 
determinate manner, and upon fixed points. In them there is 
none of that frantic hostility to the union which has been ostenta- 
tiously manifested in other places ; but on the contrary, an avowed 
attachment to the union, and a declared purpose to maintain it, 
if it can be done consistently with their security, their honor, and 
their rights. In them, there is no disposition to contend for ex- 
treme rights, or to demand conditions which in changed circum- 
stances they would not grant themselves, much less to fly to arms 
by way of preliminary menace, or to look to foreign nations for 
aid in the execution of any designs present or future ; but on the 
contrary, there is an upright and an outspoken desire to adjust 
all existing troubles, and if possible to secure the future, upon 
terms of perfect equity and equality, such as ought to satisfy true 
men, and such as true men ought spontaneously to grant. Now 
it is not to confirmed Abolitionists of the North, nor is it to con- 
firmed Secessionists of the South, that any suggestions of peace 
need be made, or any terms of honorable composition need be pro- 
pounded, which look to the preservation of a country which they 
do not profess to love, and the salvation of institutions which they 
own they abhor. But it is to the great, true, and faithful people of 
the irlorious American Nation that must not be destroyed, no matter 
of what sovereign state they may be citizens, and no matter liow 
much they may now appear to be scattered and disorganized ; tliat 
suggestions of peace, and justice, and fraternity, looking to end- 
less and boundless glory and prosperity, may be offered, with a 
good hope through God, that they may enter into the mass of 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. 0S 

human thought, and be felt according to the wisdom that may be 
in them. 

2. Let it be observed, that the free states and the slave states 
occupy in some respects totally different positions, relatively to 
the difficulties about slavery, and to the ground on which those 
difficulties are to be adjusted. With the North, the whole affair is 
a sentiment — an opinion. With the South, it is an affair of life 
and death. The North has not one dollar of estate at stake — the 
South has four thousand millions of» dollars invested in slaves. 
The North has not one dollar of income directly dependent on 
slavery — the South has an annual income of two hundred and 
fifty millions dependent directly on slave labour. Moreover, there 
are no negro slaves among the nineteen millions of people in the 
eighteen free states — so that all questions of a national aspect 
tending to influence slavery, are perfectly void of force as to the 
interior peace, quiet, and security, of all these eighteen states; 
■whereas the fifteen slave states have four millions of slaves dis- 
persed through their eight millions of white people, and every na- 
tional question that can, in any of its bearings, either agitate or 
quiet this vast slave population, is of itself a question, between 
different nations, of war or peace. Still further, the institution 
of slavery has no necessary bearing whatever, upon the social, 
economical, personal or political condition of any state or individ- 
ual at the North ; whereas it is thoroughly interAvoven with every 
fibre of society at the South — and as an institution is so pervad- 
ing in its effects wherever it exists, that a community long trained 
in the forms of life connected with it, does not incur the change 
involved in its destruction, except under some most powerful im- 
pulse. And again, this nation was once a nation composed exclu- 
sively of slave states — and if in the progress of events the greater 
part of the states become free states — every consideration of 
decency and good faith obliges those thus changing their condition 
to be more and more, instead of less and less, observant of the 
duties and even the proprieties they owe to those who remain in 
the condition once common to all. And, to suggest nothing 
more, the preponderating power of the free states in the Union, 
added to the unscrupulous and disloyal principles avowed and 
propagated, to a greater or less extent, in every one of them 



26 OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

during the last thirty years ; obliges the North, by every consid- 
eration of prudence, of equity, and of magnanimity, to concede 
to the South all that the spirit of their mutual engagements re- 
quire, instead of striving to rob her of every security which is not 
expressed in the narroAvest letter of the law. So clear is this con- 
trolling aspect of the subject, and so deeply does it enter into the 
convictions of all just men, that, on the one hand, the whole feel- 
ing of loyalty to the Union in the South, is connected with an 
abiding confidence that the *North will act as becomes her in this 
emergency ; and on the other hand, with an unshaken purpose, in 
the Union or out of it, to vindicate the security, the equality, and 
the rights, of slave States. It is upon these two points — can the 
South rely upon the North — and can the South maintain her 
vital interests in union — that public opinion in the slave States 
which have not seceded, is struggling at this moment. For 
our own part, thoroughly convinced that both of those questions 
ought to be answered in the affirmative, we must not disguise that 
the thousands of loyal and patriotic men who have reached an op- 
posite conclusion, and under it have been precipitated, by the force 
of a trained and long organized conspiracy, unto fatal proceedings ; 
are able to render reasons for their want of confidence, to which 
coming ages will say, the North ought to have given earlier and 
more considerate heed. It is idle to attempt here, a statement of 
particular aggressions, upon a case so large, so long continued, so 
aggravating, and so palpable. If there is one sentiment perfectly 
cordial, and perfectly unanimous throughout the fifteen slave 
States, it is that they have just cause of complaint; a sentiment 
in which it is extremely probable, that the actual majority of the 
entire North would to some extent concur. Nay, the very form 
of any amicable settlement that can ever be made, reveals the true 
nature of the case — as every possible statement of it must show. 
3. There are two points upon which the South has made up its 
mind, and which arc decisive, one way or the other, of the whole 
matter ; and upon which the course which the North may take, 
will either arrest the farther spread of the secession pestilence, 
and under firm and temperate treatment, as we have before shown, 
will probably bring back tlie seceding States ; or will probably 
throw the whole nation into a state of political convulsion, the 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. 2$ 

end of which no man can conjecture, and no living man will see. 
These two points relate, 1. To the fair and complete execution of 
the provisions of the Federal Constitution, made expressly in 
favor of property in slaves — and most especially the provision 
for the rendition of fugitive slaves : 2. To the recognition of the 
perfect equality of the slave States with the free States, under 
the Federal Constitution, in all things — and most especially in 
the matter of Federal Territories. We will briefly treat of 
each of these points separately. And as it appears to us 
very clear that adequate power exists under the Federal Consti- 
tution to settle both points in a fair, complete, and satisfactory 
manner — we will not enter upon the discussion of any of the 
proposed changes in that instrument. There are also several in- 
cidental questions, such as slavery in the District of Columbia, 
the migration of slaves from one slave State to another, and the 
like, which we shall not discuss ; since, as we doubt not, the 
settlement of the real question will draw after it the settlement 
of the rest ; and a refusal to settle them renders all discussion of 
the others idle. 

4. If any one will compare the unquestionable right of the 
owners of slaves, secured by the Federal Constitution, to have 
them delivered to them in the States to which they may escape, 
with what has occured during many past years with reference to 
the fair and sincere enforcement of this right, in any Northern 
State where its enforcement has been attempted, — or with the 
average aggregate conduct of the whole North upon the subject; 
he will be struck with astonishment, in proportion as he gets a 
complete idea of what the border slave States have suffered, and 
of the demoralized condition of opinion at the North on the Avhole 
subject, and of the utter wickedness of the organized robbery 
which has been systematically carried on. Mark — the Constitu- 
tion of the nation expressly requires the rendition of slaves when 
they escape. Then observe, that along the border common to Ohio 
and Kentucky, slaves have been systematically enticed from their 
owners, by organized societies in Ohio, and carried off by ar- 
rangements so extensive, so complete, and so effectual, that along 
the entire border between those States, two or three counties deep, 
Blavery is totally insecure in Kentucky. Along the frontier of 



j|g OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

all the other border slave States, a similar system of organized 
plunder has been in active operation. To what extent the system 
penetrates the interior regions of the slave States, it is difficult to 
say ; but it is known that emissaries from the North have syste- 
matically pervaded the entire South, in every imaginable disguise, 
schoolmaster, pedler, agent, quack, preacher, labourer — every 
thing — making known to the slaves the routes and methods of 
escape, and instilling into their minds principles that result in 
house-burning, poisoning, murder, and rape, if escape is impossi- 
ble. What success has attended these diabolical proceedings, 
with regard to the whole number of slaves stolen, we have no 
better means of knowing than the published statement of jour- 
nals that advocate the robbery : and after allowing for much 
boasting on their part, prompted by very obvious reasons, the 
number can hardly be set lower than a yearly average of ten 
thousand slaves — worth little short of ten millions of dollars — 
for some years past. Nor must it be forgotten, tliat although 
large sums of money are contributed by fanatics throughout the 
North, to the yearly support of these operations, yet the imme- 
diate agents of the work make it very profitable. We, and many 
hundred persons, have personal knowledge of a case which oc- 
curred a few years ago in Kentucky, in which between fifty and 
sixty negro men were attempted to be run off at one time, from 
Lexington and the surrounding region ; in which the fee of the 
white organizer and leader of the company varied, according to 
the success of the negroes in stealing, from twenty-five to one 
hundred and fifty dollars, each. In that case the party was sur- 
prised when near the Ohio River, and the slaves recovered ; and 
the white man is now in the Kentucky Penitentiary — instead of 
being lynched, as he would have been any where but in one of the 
finest communities in the world; Now let it be further observed, 
that this state of liorrible perfidy, though notorious at the North, 
instead of awaking the universal horror of the community, finds 
the fundamental princijjles which underlie it, gradually pen- 
etiiiting in all directions; widely infhiontial journals advocating 
them ; t^upporters of them sitting in many State Legislatures, 
and in both Houses of Congress ; political parties impregnated 
with them ; the laws of many States changed so as to give them 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. S9 

security ; tlie current literature deeply imbued with them ; and to 
crown all, the ministers of religion, to the extent almost of whole 
sects and denominations, making them the chief themes of their 
instruction from the pulpit. We do not enumerate the election 
of Mr. Lincoln as the climax, and final triumph of these princi- 
ples : on the contrary, it is clear to us that his nomination for the 
Presidency is to be accounted evidence of a reaction against 
them : and we know of little in the modern history of parties, 
braver, or more manly, than his unflinching and reiterated decla- 
rations, that the South is entitled to an effective law for the ren- 
dition of fugitive slaves, and to its effective execution. 

5. That is precisely what the whole South demands. Planted 
on the Constitution — loyal to it and to the country — the evi- 
dence of the wrongs she has endured written on the whole face of 
society North and South, Mr. Lincoln himself has long ago spoken 
the brave and true word ; the South is entitled to an effective law, 
and to its effective execution, whereby these outrages shall be put 
down forever. The time to discuss the propriety of putting such 
a clause in the Federal Constitution, terminated seventy years 
ago. The time to plead conscientious scruples for breach of faith 
founded on the alleged immorality of property in slaves, will 
come after it is shown that a nation can exist — much less that a 
free people can tranquilly sustain a common government, for the 
sake of enabling one half to plunder and degrade the other half. 
One of the worst symptoms of the case is manifested in the indi- 
rect manner in which many Northern States have endeavoured to 
defeat the execution of public law by unfriendly legislation, di- 
rected in some instances against their OAvn citizens, in some 
against citizens of the South, and in some against both ; and in, 
not only an apparent popular approval of such laws, and the most 
stolid indifference to the matter on the part of those who did not 
approve them, but even in their careful and Avell-considered de- 
fense by some of the ablest and best men in the North, as being 
without serious objection in principle. That is, all the people in 
Massachusetts being both citizens of that State and citizens of 
the United States, and there being nobody there to act in either 
capacity, except those who must act in both ; what follows under 
this new political morality, and what is attempted under the pre- 



30 OUR COTINTRY. [IMarch, 

text of religious scruples is — that the people of Massachusetts 
as citizens of the United States acknowledge the obligation rest- 
ing on them under the Federal Constitution for the rendition of fu- 
gitive slaves in Massachusetts ;'and at the same moment as citizens 
of the State, they pass laws refusing the use of their prisons and 
making it criminal for their officers or even their citizens to assist, 
and contrive remedies whereby the owner who seeks to recover 
his slave may be arrested as a trespasser, or even imprisoned as 
a felon. It is an exceedingly palpable instance, on a large scale, 
of what resources were possessed by those fortunate and unscru- 
pulous gentlemen of a past age, who were princes and bishops at 
the same time. In point of morals, such pretexts are simply 
scandalous. In private life, no man who resorts to them can be 
held to be a gentleman — or in pecuniary transactions, can be 
considered honest. In public life, such attempts are chargeable 
with the folly and wickedness of begetting conflicts of civil and 
political duties in mere wantonness — or with being, as we have 
before shown they are, the organized results of that seditious 
spirit of anarchy which is destroying our country, and which a 
better public sentiment must crush wherever it exists, before so- 
ciety can be safe in any part of it. The people of the free States, 
wherever and in so far as they have been seduced into such legis- 
lation, owe to public morality, to their own character, and to their 
highest interests, not less than to their constitutional obligations 
as citizens of the United States, and the mutual relations of the 
States to each other under our noble institutions ; to erase at 
once all State enactments that cast obloquy on their own national 
obligations, or look towards the dishonor or the obstruction of 
the just and unquestionable claims of others upon them. And 
we rejoice with all our heart at the indication in so many portions 
of the North, that what is right will be promptly done in this 
matter ; and by this means, one of the steps indispensable to the 
permanent raaintainance of our institutions be firmly taken, and 
the friends of the Union every where, but especially in the South, 
have a noble vindication of their resolute confidence that the na- 
tion was still sound at heart, 

6. The other point of the tAvo which the whole nation perceives 
to be fundamental, relates to the equality of the States in the 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. 31. 

Union, and especially as that bears upon the question of slavery 
in the Federal Territories, as we have already stated. The great 
idea of all our institutions, though complex, is perfectly clear. 
We constitute one nation, whose people, however, are divided into 
many sovereign States. We have no nation but as we have these 
States ; and we have no States but as they make this nation ; and 
our people are citizens both of the nation and of some particular 
State — and strictly speaking, to be one involves the other. The 
fundamental principles of our liberty is the sovereignty, not of 
governments, but of society itself — the people; and the deepest 
foundation of this sovereignty of the people, is their right to 
change, to order, and to interpret, their political and civil institu- 
tions, by voting ; to do this as separate States where the matter 
relates exclusively to the particular State — to do it in concert 
where it relates to the nation. In the exercise of this sovereign 
power the people of this nation have made all their constitutions — 
the very oldest of which now existing is the Federal Constitution. 
And the broad distinction between that Constitution made for the 
nation, which by its nature and its terms is supreme over all in its 
proper sphere, and the Constitutions made for the States respec- 
tively, is simply this ; that by the former no powers are conferred 
on the General Government created by it except such as are ex- 
pressly enumerated and such as are incidental and necessary 
thereto ; and that by the latter all powers residing in society are 
conferred on the State Governments created by them, except such 
as are expressly withheld by Bills of Right, or some similar device. 
We do not mean that these results are inherent and inevitable ; but 
we mean that these are the facts — the great and Avise things ac- 
tually accomplished by our ancestors. In the balancing of the 
powers of the Federal and State Governments, and in defining and 
ordering their mutual spheres and extent, lies that wide debatable 
ground over which statesmen have fought their battles, and organ- 
ized parties. Amongst these battles none have been more hotly 
fought, or more perilous to the country, than the one which has 
been waged over this question of Slavery in the Federal Terri- 
tories. What we propose, is not to enter into a history of these 
difficulties — nor to discuss the soundness of any of the conflicting 
interpretations of the Constitution, upon which the extreme claims 



32 OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

of hostile parties or sections rest; but to accept the actual and 
notorious postui'e of the whole affair — and having pointed out, in 
the nature of our system of government, the ground and the chai'- 
acter of the real tUflficulty, to state the principles on which alone, 
as it appears to us, the integrity of the Union between slave States 
and free States can be preserved. 

7. There are three possible results to the matter, namely : all 
the Territories may become free States, or all may become slave 
States, or some may become one, and some may become the other. 
No one who has a grain of common sense, can suppose it to be 
possible for either of the first two results to occur, by any peace- 
ful means, or that the general government can throw its influence 
systematically in favour of either of them, without breaking up 
the confederacy — or that extensive combinations of States on 
either side to secure either result, can terminate otherwise than 
in war. It follows, therefore, that the practical enforcement of 
the dogma on which Mr. Lincoln comes into power, namely, that 
there shall be no more slavery in the Territories, is impossible 
otherwise than by means of the dissolution of the Union, and the 
subsequent conquest of one portion of the country by the other. 
But Mr. Lincoln and his party, if they are insane enough to push 
their dogma to that terrible issue, will — to say nothing of their 
other perils — probably find themselves arrested, as soon as they 
show that they are in earnest, by a counter revolution at the 
Nortli, Avhich will crush the diabolical conspiracy. Admitting 
that the Congress of the United States has absolute power over 
the National Territories — and admitting that the Nortliern States 
had the permanent control of both Houses of Congress"; we have not 
the least idea, that a congress and a national administration in 
this, or any other free country, would encounter tlic peril, and 
heap on themselves the degradation of attempting to rob numer- 
ous States and many millions of people, all subject to tlie same 
goverimient, and all portions of the same nation with tliemselvcs, of 
their total share in an imperial inheritance. Such ideas may be 
made effectual in the organisation of parties, and may assume 
prominence in popular movements ; but when it becomes necessary 
to give them legal form and validity, to enforce them at the point 
of the bayonet, to risk counter-revolution in support of them, to 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. j|g 

establish them upon the ruins of society, and cover either the tri- 
umph or the failure of the attempt with the detestation of man- 
kind, their evasion, in some way or other, is one of those uncon- 
trollable necessities of responsible power, before which human 
passions bow in reverent awe. In like manner, the opposite ex- 
treme opinion and claim, is in its nature equally incapable of being 
realized. Admitting it to be true, that by the Constitution of the 
United States, every Federal Territory is dedicated to slavery, 
until on becoming a State, the people abolish it by a sovereign 
act ; and admitting that the Supreme Court has the power to estab- 
lish, beyond reversion, this sense of the Constitution, and that it 
has done so in a case regularly before it, and demanding for its 
decision the settlement of this point; still the practical enforce- 
ment of the thing, is both morally and politically impossible. We 
have not the least idea, that a congress composed exclusively of 
Southern men, could be gathered by popular election, that would 
entertain a proposition to rob free States weaker than themselves, 
of their share of a common inheritance, upon any plea that can 
be imagined ; we do not believe the minority of any slave State 
would enforce such a proposition ; we do not believe that any 
Southern gentleman would execute such a scheme. Moreover, 
the political impossibility is complete ; and the actual state of the 
country as presented by the relative number and power of the ftee 
and slave States, and as exhibited by the state of opinion every- 
where — the notion of establishing slavery in all the national Ter- 
ritories as of constitutional right, has about the same practical 
value as the notion of securing all those Territories for slavery, by 
secession. Now, let it be borne in mind, that we have taken these 
claims and the demands on the one side and the other, as being 
founded on truths that are undeniable, and rights that are unques- 
tionable ; and have pointed out the impossibility of any just, prac- 
tical, or peaceful result, in the direction indicated on either side. 
How immeasurably is that conclusion strengthened, when it is 
considered that there is not a truth asserted, a principle laid 
down, or a claim advanced on either side, that is not vehemently 
repudiated by about half the population of the nation ! Well may 
we assert the complete impossibility both of excluding slavery 
from all the Territories, and of establishing it in them all ; and de- 



g4 OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

nounce the wickedness of all parties who persist in such endeavors. 
Those Territories, if the notion survives, must necessarily be, and 
ought to be, partly slave and partly free. Political necessity de- 
mands it, public justice requires it, all true statesmanship points 
to that result, the undisturbed force of events would terminate in 
that issue, and all attempts to prevent it are founded in consider- 
ations forbidden alike by wisdom, by equity, and by patriotism; 
and will end in crime, and misery, and dishonour, precisely in the 
degree that they are successful. If the country shall be destroyed, 
the chief importance of the questions on which our ruin is brought 
about, will afterwards be, that all men may see how scandalous 
were the pretexts upon which the noblest product of human civil- 
ization was made desolate. 

8. The national domain not embraced by the boundaries of any 
existing State, amounts to one and a half, or two millions of square 
miles ; an area much greater than that covered by all the States 
lying between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River ; not 
much less, perhaps, than the area covered by all the present 
States. That the people of the larger and more numerous free 
States should combine to exclude the people of the weaker and 
less numerous slave States, from the enjoyment of the whole of 
this immense inheritance, is an outrage so preposterous, that 
one is the less astonished that it should react in a counter com- 
bination to establish slavery in the whole of it; and while the 
pretext of conscientious scruples for seizing all was the natural, be- 
cause the only one, however ignoble, Avhich the strong could use — 
the counter resort of the weaker party was also natural, and the 
only one they could make but war, namely, extreme constitutional 
right, countenanced by their construction of a political judgment 
of the Supreme Court. In effect, as there arc but three possible re- 
lations of the case, as has just been shown, so there are but three 
possible methods in which the case can be solved. One is by an 
equitable partition of the common inheritance, founded on the mu- 
tual recognition by the parties of the undeniable fiict that it is a 
common property : a second is, for the OAvners of the inheritance 
determining to fight out their opposite claims in each particular 
Territory — somewhat after the manner of the Kansas affair : the 
thu-d is, to dissolve the Union, and fight out the opposing claims 



1861.] OUR COltNTRY. 3$ 

afterwards, leaving the Territories like every thing else, in a state 
of anarchy, useless to either party. It is indeed conceivable that 
after dissolving the Union, men might recover their senses, and be 
capable, as alien enemies to each other, of acting with a degree of 
mutual forbearance and justice, which if practiced when they were 
united by the most sacred bonds, would have kept them friends for- 
ever. The probability of such a miracle, every one will determine 
for himself; as well as the probability that the future inhabitants 
of the vast region thrown away by the nation in its disgraceful par- 
oxysms, will put faith enough in such miracles to respect any par- 
tition of them amongst the fragments of a disbanded confederacy. 
It is in vain that we would evade the sacred duties which press us, 
and from whose performance there is no escape that does not at 
the same moment brand us with infamy, and hurry us towards des- 
truction. There is but one possible result that is just and right — 
and there is but one possible way of reaching that result that is 
either sure, fair, or peaceful : but that result, and that way of reach- 
ing it, are perfectly obvious — and when once recognized and pur- 
sued, they remove whatever difficulty the fair and complete 
execution of the duty to restore fugitive slaves leaves to be re- 
moved. It is upon these two points, as Ave have tried in all fair- 
ness to show, that the nation is bound and obliged to set herself 
right — that the people are required to make their majestic voice 
audible above the clamor of factions, and that all good men are 
called of God, by word and by deed, to rebuke on every side the 
phrenzy of the hour. 

9. The particular mode in which this recognition of the common 
right of all the States in the national Territories, should be made ; 
and the particular way and extent to which practical efficacy 
shall, at the moment, be given to that recognition ; do not appear 
to us to be matters of very high importance in themselves, or mat- 
ters which it is necessary that we should discuss here. An effec- 
tual law, and its effectual execution, concerning the rendition of 
fugitive slaves; a sincere recognition of the common right of all 
the States in the national domain, and the mutual abandonment 
by the North and the South of all claim and attempt to make all 
the Territories either free or slave : it is upon these points that a 
good understanding, will settle all the rest — and that a refusal to 



^ OUR COUNTRY. [TVIarcli, 

come to such an understanding, will throw upon those so acting 
the whole responsibility of all that may follow. The foregone 
conclusions of political parties, and the previous committals of 
public men, are utterly insignificant in any true appreciation of 
the interests now at stake. The propounding of particular the- 
ories, or of special lines of policy, or of lists of propositions, or any 
thing of the sort — by State Legislatures, by resolutions in Con- 
gress, by Conventions of the people, or in any other way — where 
the design or the effect is to embarrass or to obstruct the indis- 
pensable settlement, is either a great weakness, or a covert attempt 
to prevent any settlement. The demand of either party to have 
a division of the Territories that is grossly unequal, is that far un- 
just, and a manifestation of the same spirit of claiming all, which has 
already wrought so much mischief. And with a million or two of 
square miles of national domain, not yet embraced in any State, 
with a country large enough to contain fifty or a hundred times its 
present population — and with instant difiiculties which have al- 
ready produced the most terrible calamities, and whose early settle- 
ment maybe indispensable to the prevention of universal revolu- 
tion ; the purpose to make that settlement depend upon an explicit 
agreement concerning the disposition we will hereafter make of for- 
eign states, which we may possibly conquer or purchase at some 
future day ; can be considered nothing else than a purpose of pre- 
venting the possibility of any settlement. Beyond all doubt, if the 
free States consider that the main use of our Constitutional Union 
and our continued national existence, is the extinction of negro 
slavery on this continent ; or if the slave States consider that the 
chief value of those incalculable advantages, lies in the use of them 
for the indefinite extension of slavery ; the knell of our destiny is 
Btruck — and our glory, our felicity, and our triumph are as a tale 
that has been told. 

V. 1. We have said, on a previous page, that the revolution in 
the seceding States would not stop where it now is, and that the 
course it would hereafter take, depended upon causes in some de- 
gree appreciable now ; of which causes we enumerated those which 
appeared to us most important in the production of such results as 
would restore those States to their former position in the nation. 
Amongst them, the conduct of the Federal government towards 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. Sf 

the seceding States — according as it might be firm and yet 
temperate, or as it might be vacillating and timid, was enumer- 
ated as a decided element of the future. No one can doubt that 
this is true, or fail to experience great anxiety on the sub- 
ject. We feel no disposition to speak confidently about pro- 
ceedings of the general government not yet adequately ex- 
plained; nor, under any circumstances, to judge the President 
harshly. We consider Mr. Buchanan to be situated just in that 
manner, that if he saves his country, posterity will forgive him 
much, and place his name high on the roll of history ; but that if, 
either by his own fault, or by the fatal temper of the times, his ad- 
ministration is made the term of his country's grand career, he 
must be classed with the greatest victims of misfortune. Few have 
presided at obsequies that ought to have been so illustrious — 
and that threaten to be so ignominious. Apparently the sport of 
a Cabinet divided into factions, of which one was irresolute, an- 
other neither loyal to him nor to the country, and the isolated 
members without authority ; the use made of the national admin- 
istration seems to have been to promote the interest of the lead- 
ers of sedition ; until the President found himself with no alterna- 
tive but to sacrifice alike his official duty and his personal honour, 
or at a most perilous moment, to reconstruct his Cabinet on the 
basis of one or two faithful and able men, the remnant of his old 
advisers. There may be some ground for diff'erence of opinion as 
to the probable result, if the same conduct had been pursued by 
the administration from the beginning, as has been since the re- 
construction of the Cabinet. Nothing short of complete success, 
rendered only more difiicult by his own previous conduct, can now 
avert from the President, the stern condemnation of posterity. 
And the secession party, prompt, diligent, and sagacious, after se- 
curing from Mr. Buchanan the utterance of such opinions, and 
the acquiescence in such proceedings, as rendered their fii-st organ- 
ized movements safe from interruption; and after treating all 
national rights that stood in the way of their subsequent move- 
ments as mere nullities, and all national property in their reach 
as lawful plunder ; are now diligently engaged in propagating the 
sentiment, that all attempts of the nation even to expire with de- 
cency, much less to defend its dignity, its honour, its authority, 



38 OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

its military posts, or its property, should be esteemed outrages on 
sovereign States — and be condemned as acts of useless folly that 
can lead only to bloodshed ; seeing that the premeditated work is 
done, and all composition is impossible. At the same critical mo- 
ment, a signal change manifests itself in the bosom of the party 
in the North, which resists all fair settlement, and yet dreads pop- 
ular revolution there. As long as threats of violence Avere parti- 
ticularly empty and insulting, they were hurled at the South. 
Now, when their disloyal hopes point in another direction, the 
method they take to avert the coming reaction which may save the 
country, is to unite in vehement protests against what they are 
pleased to designate as coercion. If the nation, first deluded and 
then disgraced, can be paralyzed — and the whole South driven 
into secession — the extreme party at the North, and the extreme 
party at the South, each gains its special ends ; and the mass of 
the people every where, and especially in the great Central States, 
may, at their leisure, wake to the reality of a situation fatal and 
detestable to them — which it would have been far easier for them 
to have prevented, than it will be to correct. In short, it is to deter 
the national government from every act which can even tend to 
restore the supremacy of the Constitution, and the integrity of 
the nation, that the cry against what they call coercion, is substi- 
tuted for the cry against what they called oppression, in the first 
stages of the revolt. 

2. It is deplorable, in every stage and act of this sad drama, 
how an almost preternatural ingenuity of error has trifled Avith the 
noblest impulses of the people, and with tlie simplest truths 
which support all our institutions. Let the dominant party in 
South Carolina start with the political falsehood, that the people 
of tliat State are not citizens of the United States, except through 
the constitution and government of that State ; and let the Na- 
tional Administration start with the corresponding political filse- 
hood, that the supreme law of the land cannot be enforced towards 
the people of South Carolina, contrary to the Avishes and acts of 
this dominant party ; and let both parties concur in the additional 
political falsehood, that the ruin of society is better than the risk 
of collision with any body in enforcing the laws: then, of 
course, nullification, secession, sedition, revolution, anarchy — 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. 39 

are inevitable products of the organization of society, and public 
order, and regulated liberty, and the security of property and life 
become more and more impossible as the organization of society 
becomes more and more perfect. We pointed out, on a previous 
page — when exposing the perfidy of the pretext resorted to in jus- 
tifying the conduct of dominant parties in some of the free States, 
touching the rendition of fugitive slaves — the simple and obvious 
refutation, founded in the double citizenship of the people of the 
United States; and here the refutation is just as clear, and 
is founded on the same truth. By the express terms, as well 
as by the very nature of the Federal Constitution, a secession 
ordinance in the South is as totally void as a personal liberty 
law in the North possibly can be. The Federal Government 
has no more need to deal with the South Carolina convention, 
in executing the post office laws, the revenue laws, or any 
other laws — than it has to deal with the Massachusetts Legisla- 
ture in executing the fugitive slave law ; and there was no more 
legal necessity, nor any more logical consistency, in diatribes 
about lack of power to coerce a State, in one case than the other. 
There was no need, nor any power, to coerce a State, in either case ; 
but in both cases the need was urgent, and the power was com- 
plete, to execute the Laws of the United States upon every citizen 
of the United States, whatever relation he might happen to occupy 
towards any one of the States ; and to enforce those laws against 
all wrong doers. Nor is there any consideration arising out of 
the nature or the form of the opposition, that may be made to the 
execution of the supreme law, which can go farther than to ad- 
dress itself to the sound discretion of the national government, 
in the way of determining the most proper and effectual, and at 
the same time the least arbitrary, perilous, and destructive method 
of overcoming the resistaiice that is made. If the President, in 
the exercise of this discretion, allows millions of dollars worth of 
national property in buildings, in cash, in munitions of war, to 
be seized and held by citizens of the United States in avowed re- 
volt against the general government; if he permits them to take 
forcible possession of the national fortresses, and hold them in 
armed hostility to the nation ; if he permits the officers and sol- 
diers of the army of the United States, to be taken prisoners of 



40 OUR COUNTRY. [March, 

war, and treated by hostile commanders as captured enemies ; if 
he permits armies to be organized, munitions of war to be col- 
lected, batteries to be directed against the national fortresses ; if 
he permits the flag of the nation to be torn down from the public 
edifices and fortresses, and hostile flags to be planted on them — 
nay, permits that proud emblem of our national unity and force 
to be fired on with impunity, when it covers an armed force of the 
nation; if he allows the mail to be broken open and the corres- 
pondence of the government itself to be tampered with ; the for- 
eign commerce of the country to be interrupted and the revenue 
from it seized ; the internal commerce to be menaced by batte- 
ries erected under State authority on our great W' ater courses ; if, 
to add no more, he permits ambassadors from secession conven- 
tions and assemblies to menace him with war in the capital of 
the nation, and conspirators plotting the military occupation of 
the Federal City, to go unpunished : it really appears to us that 
the most nervous secessionist might consider the question of co- 
ercion, as being about as ofiensive to the President as to himself. 
Every man who has any remaining loyalty to the nation, or any 
hope or desire for the restoration of the seceding States to the 
confederacy ; must see that what is meant by the outcry against 
coercion is in the interest of secession, and that what is meant is 
in effect, that the Federal government must be terrified or seduced 
into complete cooperation with the revolution, which it was its 
most binding duty to have used all its power and influence to 
prevent. 

3. We believe it is the desire of the American people that the 
present revolution should be brought to such a conclusion that 
the seceding States shall all be restored to their position in the 
nation ; and that to this end such a settlement of existing difficulties 
shall be made, as, will eff"ectually and peacefully secure this re- 
sult. In order to that, it is impossible for the nation to permit 
anytliing to be done by the general government, which will take 
for granted that the state of exaggerated and disloyal opinion either 
in the extreme North or the extreme South, is irrevocably fixed as 
a final and sovereign expression. On the contrary, what the na- 
tion must take for granted, as the basis of every hope of peaceful 
success, is that a revolution in opinion must take place in both 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. 4|. 

quarters, in view of the imminent peril of our position. But beyond 
all doubt, every thing that can strengthen the hands of the party 
now dondnant, either at the extreme North or the extreme South 
— must weaken every hope of any revolution in opinion — every 
hope of a solution at once peaceful and successful. Nothing could 
be so fatal as the conviction in the mind of loyal citizens, both in 
the extreme North and the extreme South, that the nation does 
not sympathise with them, and will abandon them. It is, there- 
fore, sheer folly to weaken the posture of the general government 
towards the secession moment. The duties of that government, 
are perfectly clear as to their nature — no matter how difficult 
they may be as to the mode of their performance. The nation 
has no alternative, for the movement, but to abide the firm and sin- 
cere performance of those duties, — meantime striving for a settle- 
ment of the whole difficulty. If the seceding States follow up 
their past outrages by rushing into war with the nation, no matter 
on what pretext, that will only prove that the pestilence has 
ah'eady gone beyond the reach of peacefiil remedies. On the 
other hand, let it be taken for granted that the nation cannot be 
saved — and that a peaceful separation, if that be possible, is the 
best hope of all parties. Even in that case, and with a view to 
that result, the position of the general government towards the 
seceding States should be one of forbearance and moderation in- 
deed, but of unalterable firmness. The nation has an interest in 
the manner of this supposed separation, hardly inferior to its in- 
terest in preventing any separation : nor is the interest of the 
States that may go out, less permanent and fundamental in the 
right ordering of that great, and as we think terrible result, than 
any they may suppose they have in founding a new empire. That 
this particular constitutional government should fail, is dreadful 
enough ; but we owe it to ourselves, to the glorious cause of con- 
stitutional government, and indeed to the human race, that we 
should not establish by our downfall the imbecihty of republican 
freedom ; but, on the contrary, that the very wreck of our institu- 
tions should exhibit the principles of constitutional liberty — in 
contrast with every aspect of anarchy — and in all their unaltera- 
ble force and beauty. Let our ruin be the thousandth proof of 
the violence of human passions, and the instability of human 



42 OUR, coinsrTRY. [IVIarch, 

hopes: let it not be a damning evidence against constitutional 
government. To us nothing appears more certain^ than that look- 
ing to either result, the nation has no necessity more imperative, 
as means to any endurable result, than that the Federal Govern- 
ment — instead of shrinking from its true position on the one hand, 
or resorting to needless violence on the other — should accept its 
true mission as the representative of the nation, and so to a great 
extent master of the situation, and pilot the ark in which such 
transcendent treasures are embarked, courageously amidst the 
howling waters. God will bring it to the right haven : for the 
prayers of many hundreds of thousands of his children — lie yet 
unanswered before his face. 

4. It is from a single point of view that we have conducted this 
exposition, and it is unto one single result, that we have directed 
it. The point of view is that of one steadily beholding the immi- 
nent and deadly peril of his country — nay, its ruin, already in some 
degree accomplished, and hastening to be complete ; and the single 
result developed, is the salvation of the country — the whole coun- 
try. Many topics have, tlierefore, been passed in silence, which, 
from any other point of view, or in expounding any other result, 
would have required careful treatment ; and many other topics 
eminently pertinent here, have been omitted, because we have al- 
ready discussed them on a recent occasion.* It is of the last im- 
portance, that we should not be deceived by appearances, or mis- 
led either by our hopes or our terrors. The voice that can alone 
silence the storm that is raging around us — the hand that is alone 
competent to grasp and to crush every element of disorder — that 
voice has not yet spoken, that hand has not yet put forth its 
strength : it is the voice and the hand of this great nation. It is 
time for it to speak — time for it to act. If Ave may dare to trust 
all the lessons of the past, it will be true to itself — true to every 
one who is faitliful to it. In that case we are safe ; though we 
may suffer much and long before the end is reached. Our civili- 



* See " Discourse of Dr. Robert J. Breckenridge. Delivered at Lexington^ 
Ky., Januarij 4tk, 18G1 ; on the Day of National Humiliation:' It has been widely 
piillishcd in the Newspapers, both secular and religious, and in pamphlet form 
by Hull -j- IJrother, Louisville, Ky. ; Faran .j- McLean, Cincinnati, Ohio ; Woods, 
Baltimore, Wd. ; and perhaps iu other places by other persons. 



1861.] OUR COUNTRY. 48 

zation, in its present form, is the growth of nearly a century — 
the growth of two centuries and a half on this continent — the 
growth of all preceding ages in the old world, before its best 
inhabitants came hither, to construct society afresh out of all 
the treasures of the past. The gigantic oaks of the forest are 
not planted more deeply — the everlasting mountains have not 
a surer foundation — than our American Civilization. Let the 
nation stir itself as a giant, waking from his slumber. Let the 
voice of God be heard amongst us, as the voice of many waters, 
and as the voice of a great thunder. Let us not hold our peace, 
— let us not rest, till the peril is overpassed, that we should be 
termed Forsaken and our land be termed Desolate — nor till our 
country be as a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and as 
a royal diadem in the hand of our God ! 



l 



w^ 



Pulolislier's Circular. 



DANVILLE QUARTERLY REVIEAV. 

The first number of this new Theological and Literary Periodical — destined 
to take high rank at once among the ablest in America or Europe— is now in 
the printer's hands, and will be issued promptlj- on the 22d of March, 1861, 
and quarterly thereafter. Its publication is designed mainly for the exposi- 
tion, advancement, and defense of the Christian Religion, considered in its 
purely Evangelical sense; and for open resistance to whatever is hostile to it, 
or inconsistent with it. In perfect consistency with that chief design, its pages 
will be open to the consideration of all other interests of man, and the discus- 
sion of everything that promotes or obstructs any one of these interests. The 
work is projected, and will be controlled, by persons all of whom are members 
of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, all of whom 
accept the standards of that Church in their obvious sense. 

It will be conducted by an Association of Ministers, as follows: 

Bev. ROBERT J. BRECKINRIDGE, D.D., LL.D.. "i pj-ofessora in Dan- 

" EDWARD P. HUMPHREY, D. D., I ^^^q Theological 

" STEPHEN YERKES, D. D., | Seminary. 

" JOSEPH T. SMITH, B.D., J 

" JACOB COOPER, I Professors in Centre College, Danville. 

" JAMES MATTHEWS, ^ 

" ROBERT W. LANDIS, D.D., Somerset, Ky. 

" JOHN M. WORRALL, Covington, Ky. 

" ROBERT L. BRECK, New Albany, Indiana. 

The Review will be issued regularly in the months of March, June, Sep- 
tember, and December, in the best style of such works, and contain about 176 
pages of original matter in each Number, or about 700 pages per year. 

Terms. — $3.00 per annum. One copy two years for $5.00, if paid strictly 
in advance. Four copies one year, if paid in advance, $10.00. 



The Publislier offers the following inducements to any who will interest 
themselves in extending the circulation of the Review : 

For four subscribers and the money, ($12.00,) an extra copy of the Review 
for one year. 

For two subscribers, and the money in advance, ($(5.00,) any one of the fol- 
lowing works, each $1.2.'> : 

RFV DK .1 AUDISON AI.EX.^NDERS COMMKNT.XRY ON MARK, 1 vol. 

REV. DU. .7. AnmSON ALEXANDERS C'OMMENTARV: ON MATTHEW, 1 vol. Issued 

11Ev"T)k' VaPDTSON ALEXANDER'S NOTES ON NEW TESTAMENT LITEKA- 

TUIiE AND ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, 1 vol. Issued since his death. 
REV. JA.MES W. ALEXANDER'S THOUGHTS ON PREACHING, I vol. 

For four subscribers, and the money in advance, ($12.00,) any one of the 
following works: 

REV DR. J. ADDISON ALEXANDER'S COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS, 2 vols.. S2.50. 
REV DR R. J. BRECKINRIDGE'S THEOLOGY, (The Knowledge of God, Objectively 
Consiilored,) 82.01); or, tlie oIliiT volume by the same niithor, (The Knowledge of God, 
Subjectively Considered,) $2. .10. 

Address, RICHARD H. COLLINS, 

Publisher "Danville Review," 26 West Fourth St., Cincinnati, 
or, DANVILLE REVIEW. Danville, Ky. 







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